Eyyyy!

Giuseppi's personality traits

In The Sims games for PC, starting with The Sims 3, a Sim's character is defined by assigning a certain number of traits. These personality traits define how Sims interact with the world and what they prefer to do or not do. Many traits give Sims unique actions and animations; for example, Handy Sims will sometimes flip around a wrench, and Evil Sims will burst into maniacal laughter at random. It's amazing how, by simply combining a few of these traits, you can give so much character to your Sims.

When we finished playing all the Giuseppi Sims, we still wanted more of him, so we ended up creating him in The Sims 3 for PC. When we were doing that, we had to decide what traits to give him, which led to us discussing what is most essential about his personality. Here is what we ended up choosing, together with our explanation of why we think these traits fit him.

Note that the base game only lets a Sim have up to five traits. We ended up thinking of many more than five, so you can choose what you think is most important, or use mods to be able to have all of them active at the same time.

Light Sleeper

Light sleepers toss and turn throughout the night and are woken up by the slightest bump in the night.

A Light Sleeper has trouble sleeping, but, on the plus side, burglars can't sneak around unnoticed in their house while they're asleep. They can try to research how to sleep better, but nothing seems to help. They yawn a lot, and, since they're chronically tired, they can sometimes sleep on the job.

Canonically, Giuseppi is a light sleeper. He says so himself in The Urbz:

I sleep light and with one eye open. I had to, growing up with 4 brothers. They could be mean, I tell ya.

Based on the way the Light Sleeper trait works in The Sims 3, this means that Giuseppi is unrobbable, because he will always wake up when a burglar arrives on his lot. Interestingly, this thief is immune to other thieves. We bet that helps him safeguard his loot.

Yet it also means that Giuseppi has trouble getting fully rested. This must be especially hard for him considering the usual comfort level of his sleeping arrangements. We know he has slept in his van (maybe in the back on one of the many cheap beds he stole from us), in the broken down bus on the outskirts of Miniopolis (we can just imagine the discomfort and the constant cawing of crows), and in his hell-hole apartment in The Urbz (which surely has paper-thin walls). Giuseppi must be so sleep-deprived. Maybe that's part of the reason for the shadows around his eyes. Meep.

Though, this curse is also helpful. Given that he's double-crossing people like Berkeley Clodd, who is a sneaky sadistic monster, and Daddy Bigbucks, who has no issue hiring people like Darius to rough people up... probably the only reason Giuseppi is able to sleep at all is that he is confident that he will wake up immediately at the slightest sound. He sleeps badly, but, ironically, that lets him sleep at night.

Brooding

Brooding Sims often can't help themselves from contemplating the riddles, mystery, and meaning of life. Sometimes the weight of these incredibly deep thoughts can become a distraction, and can actually slow down the creative process slightly.

While the name of this trait sounds excessive on Giuseppi, the effects are in-character. A Brooding Sim will take time for themselves to think. They can isolate themselves wherever they are, sit down, and consider the hollowness of life or contemplate the meaning of meaning. They can also take long, brooding showers, and they are drawn to writing poetry, even if their broodingness leads to less creative output overall.

In all of his appearances, Giuseppi is often seen thoughtfully stroking his chin. And, in The Urbz, he does discuss the hollowness of life a lot. If his shower worked better, he does seem like someone who would want to take long, brooding showers. He's someone who takes time at thinking, even though he'd rather be distracted from his own heavy thoughts.

I try not to think about things like that. Every time I look into the night sky I feel like I'm about to fall off the planet.

If he writes poems, he's certainly not telling you, though.

In The Sims 3, one effect of this trait is that it makes Sims autonomously look out of windows in a brooding way. While that's hilarious and would be fine every once in a while, when we played Giuseppi with this trait on him it kept happening so much that it was disrupting our gameplay. We think that part of the problem was that he was living in such a small house that he had very little else to do beyond look out windows, and the two windows were located in such a way that he was always within range of brooding at this or that window. We had to disable this interaction via mods. Otherwise, though, the behavior given by the Brooding trait seemed very in-character. We've witnessed him sit alone in a park and think of heartbreaks.

Commitment issues

Sims with Commitment Issues don't really want to settle down into a long-term relationship or a lifelong career. Marriage is out of the question!

This personality trait is actually more complicated than the description makes it sound. First of all, Sims with Commitment Issues can get married. It just requires a higher relationship level for them to be able to propose and to get married, so it is harder for these Sims to be in a committed relationship. Once in a relationship, they may "fret over" or "regret" their commitment. That doesn't necessarily mean that they will end it, though -- their commitment issues will just be on their mind.

The reason why we think this trait suits Giuseppi is because you can be super friends with him, at 100% relationship, making out with him, but he will always refuse to move in with you.

Forget you, buddy. I got my own place and my own life.

Hell, Giuseppi doesn't even let you visit his house, let alone agree to live together.

Also, Sims with Commitment Issues don't take well to expensive gifts, and will refuse gifts with a price-tag greater than 200 Simoleons. Giuseppi does just that in the games. You can't give him a ring. He will take a single red rose, but certainly not a ring.

Beyond the scope of relationships, Sims with Commitment Issues also want to always learn new things and explore new career paths. We think that's true of him. After all, through the course of the games, we do see him change "careers". It also fits in nicely with his lifestyle of living in a place for a little while and then moving on. Nothing ties him down.

He also does take time to better himself and learn new things:

I spent some time in prison last year, and while I was there I read every book in the prison library. All three of them.

...although he wishes he could do better.

Relatedly, Sims with Commitment Issues are also more prone to having a Mid-Life Crisis. We think it might be too early for him to call it a "mid-life" crisis, but in the time after Bustin' Out and into The Urbz he's been certainly going through a major crisis of some sort.

Loner

Loners enjoy time spent alone more than time spent with others. Quite shy, they will never approach anyone that isn't a close friend. They prize their solitude and get nervous around large groups.

This trait is pretty straightforward: Loners are perfectly comfortable being alone. They don't need to socialize that much to be happy.

Giuseppi doesn't seem to have any friends. Besides the player character (if you choose to do so), the closest thing to a friend he seems to have is Detective Dan in The Urbz. And that was because he was his parole officer. He was literally forced to talk to him. We mean, we're glad that now they seem to appreciate each other, but this says something about how anti-social Giuseppi more generally is.

At the beginning of Bustin' Out, Giuseppi was perfectly fine standing there in the back of the bar. As we were discussing under Commitment Issues, he's not attached, and he's prepared to leave town at any moment. He is also notably absent from the social events that happen in The Urbz, and he's always found kinda away from everyone else. The most social that he ever gets is reading his opponents while gambling, and you can hardly call that a social interaction.

In Bustin' Out, there are a few lines referring to Giuseppi's burglar "friends", but there's no sign of these people, and we wonder if this was a discarded idea that wasn't fully edited out.

Childish

Childish Sims find it difficult to 'act their age'. They love playing with children's toys, see things through the eyes of a child and need to be constantly entertained.

Childish Sims are able to play with toys and enjoy them, regardless of age. This is very true of Giuseppi in The Sims 2 for GBA and DS, where he is seen with a paddle ball and a super soaker respectively.

We wonder if this idea of Giuseppi playing with toys is a more sanitized form of his earlier established love of gambling. In any game featuring a casino, he's certain to spend a lot of his time there. And he's quite skilled -- he manages to turn a profit, and he considers such games as "easy". We can believe that Giuseppi loves both toys and games, and it's all the better that he can sometimes make money because of it.

Childish Sims also enjoy sleeping with a teddy bear, regardless of age. If Giuseppi sleeps with a teddy bear, he's not telling you.

The Childish trait also means that these Sims generally want to always have fun, and are easily bored by boring conversation. This is also extremely true of Giuseppi. He won't stand for you making small talk at him. He wants to talk about something interesting or nothing.

Have we stooped so low that we have to talk about the weather? Shame on us [Player Sim].

Childish Sims may autonomously try to scare other Sims for fun. We hope Giuseppi doesn't do that too much... But he does do it. He is aware that he's perceived as scary, and, when he's not feeling too down about how he's stuck in the role of "shady guy", he can get a kick out of playing around and intentionally spooking someone.

You could also argue that Giuseppi's entire lifestyle is, in some ways, childish. Rather than "growing up" and supporting himself through a conventional job, he wanted to be something exciting and glamorous; he considered being a Secret Agent, and when that wasn't an option, he deemed there was no other career worth going to University for. Instead, he decided to become a thief, living a romanticized life of crime on the lam, always on the run from his problems ...until they eventually catch up with him.

Vehicle Enthusiast

Vehicle enthusiasts enjoy the craftsmanship of a fine ride and know the value of a dependable vehicle. Their relationship with their vehicles is a special one.

A hidden feature in The Sims 3 is that Sims can build relationships with their vehicles. Normally, this takes sixty rides in the same vehicle. A Vehicle Enthusiast, however, builds a relationship with their vehicle in just eight rides. They can also always name their car, while other Sims have to wait until they're on very good terms with the car.

We don't have to explain why this fits Giuseppi. We wrote a whole page about his relationship with his van. The van he named. The van that defines him, even in its absence. He loved that van.

Hidden trait: Burglar

Burglars must perfect their sneaking skills to properly liberate imprisoned items from the homes of neighbors. Burglars like to keep the skill in the family, so their children are able to sneak out like a pro at birth.

Of course he's a burglar. Giuseppi's character arose from the burglar NPC from the first Sims game. Later Sims for PC still feature burglars. When the trait system was introduced in The Sims 3, their sneakiness was encoded as a special secret trait. This allows them to do the sneaky walk. Giuseppi does this constantly. It's his primary form of locomotion.

This trait is unavailable in the initial selection when you create a Sim, but it can be added with the use of mods. The in-game way to get it would be to befriend the burglar NPC, which makes them playable... and then, if you manage to date them and get children, their children will sneak too.

Even when Giuseppi gives up his career of thievery, he still walks by sneaking. It's a genetic trait and not going away just because he's reformed now.

Kleptomaniac

Kleptomaniacs "accidentally" end up with things owned by others. They often "permanently borrow" items from work, school, or even their neighbors' homes!

We were surprised to learn that adding the Burglar hidden trait to a Sim does not make them able to steal. The way to do that is to give them the Kleptomaniac trait. The concept of it is not quite right for Giuseppi, since it sounds like Kleptomaniac Sims are just compelled to take things, rather than choose to steal for profit. They also get weird guilt after the fact. However, if you wanted to make Giuseppi's Sim in his pre-Urbz version, you might want to give him this trait just to make it possible for him to be a thief. It does add a whole new level of gameplay to sneak into people's houses, get things, and then sell them as the primary form of income.

Lifetime Rewards

The Sims 3 also features a system of unlockable traits that are earned through the accumulation of lifetime happiness points. These are the ones that we would give Giuseppi:

Observant

Discover the traits of others twice as quickly!

Because Giuseppi pays attention. He's good at reading people. He understands the main character's family situation in Bustin' Out, he's good at card games, and he's careful enough to be able to double-cross people and get away with it. And he notices secret trap doors that we didn't know about in our own house.

Suave Seller

Suave Sellers are able to sell their goods for a higher price at local stores and the consignment store.

Giuseppi tongue-in-cheekily introduces himself as a businessman. He can sell you anything, even when you know that it was acquired through not quite legal means. And he wasn't caught until he was caught in the act. It wasn't his shady van business that got him behind bars, it was being directly seen while stealing.

Simmunity

You'll have super immunity that prevents you from getting nauseous, sick, and allergies.